


Blood and Breath

by earthphoenix (roughknuckles)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Death Fix, M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-05
Updated: 2007-11-05
Packaged: 2018-01-18 06:53:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1418956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roughknuckles/pseuds/earthphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus visits the cave lake once a year to gaze upon his lost love, Regulus, floating among the dead.</p>
<p>Experimenting with abstract, dreamlike, hallucinatory writing, in first person POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood and Breath

_Every summer, it is the same. I slice myself open just to see you. My blood has stained the same stone wall, over and over again. When I enter into the cave, I push myself out into the boat and allow it to guide me where it wishes. It knows me now. And it knows what I am looking for. My sweet Regulus, my lost little prince. There you are, floating so close to the surface, eyes wide, palms up against the underside of the lake. My love, what I would do to touch you. What I do, every summer, just to see you._  
  
 _My worthless blood drips from the edge of the boat, where I hold myself back, I want to join you, I wish I could. I wish, my prince, you were still with me._  
  
 _The splash of red disturbs the surface of the lake and you shift in the water. I would give you all my blood, if it gave you life again. I would give you everything I had. But I have nothing of worth, not even the darkest magic can bring you back._  
  
 _You are encased in a glassy, watery tomb. Your skin is waxy and eyes wide open, blue and doll-like under the water no matter how I might plead with you to move, to live. Only the drops of blood over your face seem to give you color as it swirls and disperses._  
  
 _You are immortal in my mind, and yet here, in this place, you will never grow old. I wonder if you can see me, if you know me at least in your soul. Your precious soul, I tried my prince, I tried to keep you safe. But I failed you. Every summer when I return to you, and I fail yet again to bring you back. My heart aches to the point that I can barely breathe and I slice myself open again, this shock opening up my lungs, but also pouring more blood into the waters, simulating life._  
  
 _You are so close, my prince, I can almost touch you. I lean dangerously close, over the edge of the boat, I could kiss you, and it would be my last. I have promised so many people that I would live. I even promised you. But this is not life, not without you. Your voice, your hand, your smile._  
   
Blood, brilliant and crimson splashes through the cursed depths, over the drowned Prince's lips, staining them a life-like shade of soft pink as they open slowly. The youngest Black's neck arches under the water, just a little and his mouth moves up an inch, into the blood-stained water over it until they breach the surface, just the fullest points of them, the pillows of Regulus Black's lips.  
   
M _y Regulus. My love. There is no god, no devil either. I have tried to give my soul to whoever would take it, in exchange for your life. It was an offer, declined. Perhaps my soul is simply worthless, not as good as yours. Or perhaps, I never had one to begin with. In which case, it does not matter what I am about to do. My Regulus. My sweet._ "My prince." _I whisper against your dead lips, kissing them, even if it should be my last act in life._  
   
A gasp, soft, barely audible left the lovely, dead mouth at Snape's touch.  
   
"My love." _I mourn you, every day that you are not in my life. I cannot overcome this, I cannot forget you. I kiss you again, and hope in my distress, I am careless, let me fall, let me fall into the cold waters, and swim with you forever, let me take your hand and never be without you again._  
   
One hand, fingertips first, left the water and touched Severus's shoulder, then wrapped around his back.  
   
 _The boat almost tips, but when I lean back, I keep my hand upon your arm, and our lips just brushing. Could I endure it? Dare I remove you from your eternal tomb? Shall I let you pull me in? I cannot open my eyes, the tears are blinding and burning._ "Regulus."   
   
Regulus gasped again and began to cough as air entered his lungs, his eyes falling closed for the first time in almost twenty years.  
   
 _My mind is so consumed by lies and deceit that I do not know how to tell myself the truth any longer. I do not know what is real. I do not always care. I pull you to me, up into the boat, laying over you and kissing your lips, holding you. Let us float, let us drift. Let me at least imagine I managed to save you._  
   
Glistening slime, like afterbirth coated Regulus's skin, slipping off in the boat, thick and white, revealing the true color of his skin beneath. Another cough, another and hands gripped Severus's robe as his head turned and thick, black sludge left his mouth like a plug.  
   
 _I cannot stop crying. I cannot open my eyes. I think I am going mad. My heart has been shattered and mended and shattered again so many times, there is little left now._ "Regulus."  
   
Regulus wretched again, more of the thick white, watery skin that had entombed the young man for so long slipping away, cracking in some places as he began to vomit what looked like tar into the bottom of the boat.  
   
 _My hands are against your chest, even though I am laying over you_. "Regulus." _I sob. I cannot rescue you. I do not know how to. I think I am dead._ "Are we dead?"   
   
"Hhhhh-" he could only manage the beginning of the cry for help as Severus's hands press through the waxy shell and meet his skin, still warm underneath after all these years. Regulus Black's heart hammers with hope and terror under Snape's palm as he tried to spit out the last of the vile, dark poison that had wasted in his body after he'd fallen in the embalming lake.  
   
 _I swear my eyes are open, but I cannot see. I have gone blind. My tears, they are poisonous to me, like acid. And yet I find your lips, touching your face with my hand, kissing your temple, your cheek._ "My prince-" _the corner of your mouth,_ "my love." _I kiss your lips and suck out something lumpy and thick, gagging and spitting it into the boat, fear knots within me, have I just desecrated you? Was that your tongue, now laying in the bottom of the boat?_  
   
Regulus gasped, fully, taking deep lungfuls of air, "SeverusSeverusIcan'tsee-"  
   
 _Regulus. My heart breaks again,_ "Regulus" _I cry, it never ends, hot and wet down the side of my face, dripping onto yours. I hold you close, touching the side of your face with my hand, finding your eyelids, carefully rubbing my thumbs over them, wiping away the slickness, pulling you up, into my arms._   
   
Regulus turned his head closer to Severus's hot, salty tears, blinking the chrysalis out of his eyes, "Please get me out ... out of here, please ... Severus please."  
   
"Never to be separated, again." _I tell you, wrapping your limp arms around me as I command the boat to do my bidding, taking us back to shore. Where I stand and walk without sight, knowing my way, seeing without eyes._  "Do you smell the sea?" _I ask, my blood smearing over you, I will give you everything, and more._  
   
Regulus nodded, the places where Severus's blood touched the remaining white slime on his skin falling away, melting easily and leaving his body. "I smell you, I can-" Regulus sobbed with relief, "smell you, my love, Severus, my Severus. Take me home, to yours, to mine, somewhere dry, I ... can't ... I have to get away from this ... grave."  
   
 _I carry you to the very edge of the cliff, the waves smashing against the rocks below us. I know of a place. It has never been home to me, nor you, but I take you there. Turning sharply we leave that horrible place and my dream continues. My madness thrives_. "Regulus." _I kick the tips of my boots against the stairs finding each step as I walk you up, entering into the first room and laying you out on the bed. The cottage is warm and far from the sea, it is deep in the woods, it is peaceful, though not deadly quiet, there are sounds – nature, animals, wind and branches – there is life here._ "The fire-" _I begin, though the fireplace is eager to please and ignites the moment I think of it._  
   
Regulus was panting now, looking up at Severus from where he lay on the bed, weak and limp. "Severus," his blue eyes widened a little, "come here, come sit ... your eyes ..."  
  
 _I think I am dead. That perhaps there still is no god, but there is this – a place for my mind, my soul to go – to invent its own reality. You have come to meet me here, I believe._ "I found you." _We are together, my prince, you are no longer lost, not to me. I touch you, you feel so real. And yet this is what I feared. Sensation in the afterlife meant I could still experience pain._ "Regulus." _I lay with you, touching you, your chest, your arms, your face, I know you._  
   
"Can you ... undress me? Please, I feel like I'll never be dry again." Indeed, the prince's fine clothes almost fall off in pieces at the merest touch, rendering him naked next to Severus in the bed, his teeth chattering.   
   
 _I wipe both my hands down you like a towel, banishing it from your skin before pulling at the blankets, wrapping you and kissing you again. My hands are unnaturally hot against your skin, and my tears continue to burn, lightly sizzling and crackling, warming and giving your skin new life and feeling. My prince, you are alive in my heart and mind and alive in my arms. We have both been dead in this world for so long, I believe it is time that we should live. I kiss you, my prince. This is not the end, we are eternal._

**Author's Note:**

> co-authored. originally written for thestralskinphoenixtears


End file.
